Product Description

User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
Ed
a Expert

Date Reviewed: June 8, 2011

Strengths: Cheap. Decent photos

Weaknesses: Plastic. Did I mention plastic?

Bottom Line:

I never used an AF product. I went from F3's straight to digital. One day I was in Goodwill of all places looking over their $4 point-'n-shoot cameras when I spotted a perfectly working N75 SLR body for the same price as all the others. Well, it's an N75, but it was also $4, and you don't pass things like this up.

The only problem was I didn't have a lens for the camera. Every lens I have are AIS for the film bodies, and DX VR for the digitals. So, I got the cheapest AF lens possible on eBay... this one.

Manual focus? Forget it. There's no "feel" to the focus ring even if you can find it with two fingers. Just put it on autofocus and forget it. The zoom is scarcely better and you have to read the scale to present the focal length because there's no feel to the action here either.

Plastic. One drop on a hard surface and don't even bother to pick it up. I haven't dropped it... yet.

Optically? It's fine; especially for a $4 SLR body. I've never been as discriminating on sharpness and color as most folks. Unless I was shooting the now-defunct Kodachrome 25 I really couldn't tell the difference in sharpness between lens anyway unless I was looking at the extreme corners of the frame. In the center of the frame my lower grade Nikkor zooms (including this one) looked about the same as my high-dollar primes. I just couldn't never see much, if any difference when using print film.

Ditto for the noise... it's a noisy lens, probably because plastic is a poor insulator AND a good sounding board. But, I just don't care about noise anyway unless I'm trying to sneak up on a grizzly and live to tell about it, and that hasn't happened yet. Slow focus?... so I've heard (and seen), but I'm not running a race in photography and a slow focusing lens has never cost me anything.

So, if you need an inexpensive lens for an inexpensive film body... this is one way to go. You get nice pictures on a budget, and this lens just fits a equally inexpensive and plastic SLR.

Similar Products Used: The only lens I can compare to this one was the series which came out 25-30 years ago when Nikon FIRST decided to enter the consumer product shelf market. What were those little short lens which went on a cheap plastic camera which had "90" in the model name? It was the one which had a fully auto shutter and the only other setting was 1/90th for flash. This lens reminds me of something I can no longer remember the name of. Same story, optically fine but plastic construction. That was something in those days coming from Nikon which up to that point had always made boat-anchor metal cameras and lenses.

Strengths: Size and ease of use are good, with quality pictures at a very low price. This is essentially a standard to moderate zoom replacement lens. Given the price, this is almost a disposable lens - in the good sense, if you break it, you won't be crying about your $1000 lens. It is light and handles well, focusses quickly (if a bit noisily), and is not obtrusive.

Weaknesses: This is NOT a pro-level lens. For ultimate sharpness, use a prime. For best performance in a zoom, get the top-end ones. For sheer ruggedness, get a real top-end Nikon. For a fast lens (f2.8 and under), buy a fast lens.

Build quality is mediocre, but not that much worse than most modern lenses (note: the plastic mount version may have worse build quality). If you want to feed your fetish for build quality, get a Leica lens.

On newer autofocus cameras, you may find yourself reaching for the zoom ring, grabbing the focus ring instead, and finding that blocked. Unlike newer lenses, you can't override without breaking the camera.

Bottom Line:

Metal mount version is perfectly adequate, compact and quick for casual use at a very reasonable price. Works well on most Nikon digitals (those that have the screw autofocus: D50 and most mid-level Nikons up). This is a moderate range zoom that is roughly the same size and weight as most primes, perfect for a lazy day at the park and casual picture taking where you don't want to have your monster zoom around your neck like a boat anchor. Fast enough with modern digital cameras in most uses despite the f4 maximum aperture. A wonderful inexpensive backup lens.

Similar Products Used: All kinds of zooms covering wide-to-tele. Most are huge heavy monsters that you get tired of carrying around. The Nikon digital 18-55 is more versatile and you may be able to find for a comparable price used.

Type of photography: People

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
jk
a Intermediate

Date Reviewed: September 8, 2003

Strengths: Good for birthday parties, Fun snapshots. It's easy to use and light.

Weaknesses: Vingetting at certain zooms, Not very sharp.

Bottom Line:

At first I thought this lens was alright. However after my camera failed I used an Olympus point and shoot camera in the same environment. When I got the pictures back the Nikon images were not as sharp, However they had better colour.

Weaknesses: CHEAP FEEL, CHEAP LOOK, CHEAP ACTION
OK, this may be petty of me, but I can't live with it...and you may not be able to either.
Somewhat limited range for zoom.

Bottom Line:

This lens admitteldy takes some very decent photos, especially for the price. But I can't get by the construction. I feel totally ill-at-ease using it. Manual focus is a nightmare, the zoom feels toy-like and there's plastic plastic EVERYWHERE. I've bought a Nikon 28-105 and the 35-80 is being sold.

I got old one with metal mount. Frankly I have to admit to say this lens is very good. Over the years, I have accumulated so called Finest 35mm lens,mostly prime,for minolta(my wife's system),Nikon, Canon. My favorate 35mm prime are 85/1.2 USM, 90/2.8 TSE, 200/1.8 USM,100/2.8 Maxuum macro AFD, 100/2 DC AFD Nikkor, 50/1.4 Maxxum AF, 400/4.5 Maxxum AF,35/1.7 Ultron Voight lander,70~200/2.8 IS USM(yes this is only zoom lens I own), 85/2.8 PC macro Nikkor, 500/4 EOS ISM IS, 85/1.4 A pentax(Not FA version), 85mm/1.4 MM Zeiss. and Finally I just ordered 100/2.8 leica macro. What I am interestin in here is Comparing cheapest consummer zoon lens against fineast prime at same aperture !. Guess what? Shadow detail, color redering was slightly noticible. But sharpness was almost undetectable up to 8 by 10. Dont believe me. well My wife don't. So I tested her 100 of 5 by 7 Pictures half of them pictured by cheap zoom. Well She could pick only 12 that she is sure of it took by the prime. 78 picture she wasn't sure. But the problem is that 12 out of 4 was took by the cheap zoom. Test shot was took on the heavy tripod with mirror lock up and same illumination and same object distance. Well I don't know what to say. You be the judge.